1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device, an image processing method and storage medium, to display a retrieved image similar to a target image.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, on discovering an unknown plant a user may take an image of the plant in question using an imaging device, and thereafter, by comparing the captured image in which the plant is shown, and a plurality of images in which known plants are shown (for example, images published in an encyclopedia), may perform the task of identifying the type of the plant in question.
To support this type of user task, technology exists in which use is made of a database that stores multiple image data in which all kinds of plants are shown, and comparison processing is performed to compare data of the captured image showing a plant whose type or the like is desired to be identified, and data of respective images inside the database.
Here, the data of a captured image showing a plant whose type is desired to be identified is referred to below as “target image data”, with the meaning of data that is a target for comparison processing.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2007-133816 discloses technology for narrowing down, from multiple image data stored in a database, the number of items of image data that possibly show a plant of the same type as the target image, in order words the number of images similar to the target image (more precisely, similar to the plant image), and for displaying the narrowed-down plurality of candidate images together with the target image.